Graduate school

See also

Research at the Department for Continuing Education

The Department has an active interdisciplinary research community, particularly with respect to public engagement and practitioner-based initiatives which build on the research interests of our academic staff and over 80 research students.

Inter-culturally Speaking (Online)

Overview

We often interact with people from different cultural backgrounds, and we need to do it in ways that work. This course provides you with an opportunity to explore your own cultural identities from different viewpoints and to develop a clearer perception of others and of how they may see you. It will make you a more aware and efficient intercultural communicator and a more capable and valuable participant in diverse groups.

My culture, myself?

Are we just who we think we are, or are we also who others think we are? Are we born prejudiced? Can we talk of ‘national characteristics’? How can we best reach those from other cultures in a pluralistic society, in a globalized world? How can we best live together on this planet?

If you have asked yourself these or similar questions, this course will interest you. It will not provide all answers, or even most answers, but it will lead you to consider and critically evaluate your own cultural identities, to take the need for group cohesion into account, to consider different personality types and cultural characteristics, to recognize the implications of cultural diversity, and to better communicate and work creatively with others from different cultures (most people you meet!).

For information on how the courses work, and a link to our course demonstration site, please click here.

Programme details

1. My culture myself? What is culture anyway?

Notions of culture: How we perceive ourselves as members of different cultures

8. Meeting the other: From culture shock, to misunderstandings, to acculturation

Inter-cultural encounters

Stages of adaptation to a new culture

Acculturation

Pluri-cultural identities

Immigration

The narcissism of small differences

Mediated inter-cultural encounters

9. Mind your manners: Business cultures and doing business in a globalised world

Corporate cultures

Cultural attitudes and assumptions in hiring

Corporate culture and change

Inter-cultural business training

Notable inter-cultural trainers and materials

The importance of foreign language learning

Global cross-pollination and its cultures

10. Do as the Romans do – or try to understand their behaviour from their point of view: Inter-cultural competencies, developing a third perspective, what makes an inter-cultural mediator

A brief history of inter-cultural communication as a field of study

Inter-cultural communicative competence

Becoming inter-culturally competent

Multiple intelligences

Building relationships with people from other cultures within our national culture

Seeking points of similarity

Educating the inter-cultural communicators of tomorrow

We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

Recommended reading

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet. There are no required textbooks.

Certification

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £10 fee.

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

All students who successfully complete this course, whether registered for credit or not, are eligible for a Certificate of Completion. Completion consists of submitting both course assignments and actively participating in the course forums. Certificates will be available, online, for those who qualify after the course finishes.

IT requirements

This course is delivered online; to participate you must to be familiar with using a computer for purposes such as sending email and searching the Internet. You will also need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended minimum computer specification.

Course aims

Think critically and engage in informed discussion of theoretical principles and key psychological and cultural concepts.

Appreciate individual psychological differences.

Understand the importance of coexisting cultural differences in the early 21st century.

Appreciate and critically evaluate their own cultures.

Recognize the nature and implications of cultural diversity.

Apply strategies which will enable them to be effective intercultural communicators.

Research a topic, extracting and synthesising key information and drawing informed conclusions from analysis of theoretical concepts and their own observations.

Work creatively and flexibly with others from similar and different cultures.

Work with a degree of autonomy, self-discipline and time management.

Teaching methods

Although this course requires understanding of theoretical concepts, it is also an experiential course which requires students to reflect on their own cultural identities, beliefs and perceptions, and at times to share these reflections with their fellow students.